


Anonymous my ass

by LithiumReaper



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Club, Arma!Pete, BB!Patrick, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:12:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1931502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LithiumReaper/pseuds/LithiumReaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikey gave Patrick a nod and a quirk of the mouth when Patrick sputtered “Travis, for the love of God, don’t scratch your balls on my couch!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anonymous my ass

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been sitting on my computer for over a year and I'm posting it now, cause why the hell not.....
> 
> Unbeta'd so please let me know if there are any errors, glaring or otherwise..
> 
> Kudos and concrit are most welcome..

Patrick met Gerard (and Mikey) after his next door neighbour, Travis, walked into Patrick’s apartment in a white fresh prince shirt and leopard print slippers. Only. Travis said “’Sup.” Patrick blushed and handed him a relatively small tea towel to cover his dangly bits, which he did not do. 

Instead, Travis used the tea towel to pile a bunch of cookies out of the glass jar Patrick got from his mother and sat his very naked, very fine ass down on the couch. Three years, a semi-boyfriend and a disastrous girlfriend later, Travis still sits on Patrick’s couch naked as the day he was born. 

To be fair, Patrick met Mikey before he met Gerard. Patrick came home from his admittedly well paying job to find Travis and a very skinny guy on his couch. They were eating pop tarts. Patrick still has no idea where the pop tarts or the new man came from. Mikey gave Patrick a nod and a quirk of the mouth when Patrick sputtered “Travis, for the love of God, don’t scratch your balls on my couch!”

Patrick found out a few hours later that Mikey lives with his brother in Patrick’s apartment building. Travis is still an enigma, but Patrick is pretty sure he crashes on the Cobra Cult-guy’s couch. Patrick doesn’t ask questions, because he is fully aware that he’ll be left with far more questions than answers.

Gerard owns two clubs. Patrick still doesn’t fully understand why a man that anti-social and border-on-creepy goth owns a hardcore club where local bands scream the blood from their eyes and scene kids look to become the next groupy wife-and-or-husband. They don’t mind, Patrick muses, as long as they get laid, score blow and get to hang off of the arm of the flavour of the week in hardcore music in the Chicago scene. Something like that.

The other club though, caters to the more pop and dance members of society, where Patrick has a steady gig on the last Friday of every month. Gerard insisted. Patrick protested. Loudly and vehemently, but after Gerard heard one of the random mash-up songs Patrick threw together during a very boring meeting, which Travis had gotten hold of, somehow. The next thing Patrick knew, after suffering through a Gerard-Way-Passionate-Speech-On-Today’s-Children-And-Their-Lack-Of-Proper-Music-Culture, he was sitting in a private office with his laptop and an extensive playlist of jazz, blues, motown and alternating rock songs with a strong dance feel courtesy of PStump, as Travis insists on calling him.

At the club though, he’s anonymous. He sits in the back office from eleven to two, playing various mixes he made during the month, a few popular pop songs (“Because the kids love it Patrick!” Gerard actually whined that one out) and a few mash-ups of his that are, quite surprisingly, pretty popular. Gerard and Mikey had a decent sound system installed in the office, so that Patrick could actually get some crowd feedback. It freaked him out at first, playing Prince & The New Power Generation overlaid with a thrumming base that made wallflowers get up and grind against the other ‘tripped out of their minds on something’ teeny-boppers that frequent Gerard’s club.

The staff rotate between the two clubs, but Patrick usually gets to work with the same group of people the nights he isn’t the hermit on the third floor of that questionable looking apartment complex. 

Frank, the short and heavily tattooed guy who insists he’s scrappy, mans the bar with Joe, who has more hair than a model on the cover of the latest fashion magazine. Travis, and this is the kicker, mans the door with Bob. Travis is, well, Travis. Tall, dark skin, dark eyes, tattoos and precariously placed piercings. Travis is also a slut. A massive slut. Patrick has no actual evidence of this, but he trusts his gut. Bob, however, is a quiet and fucking large blonde hair, blue eyed and pierced lip guy. He’s by far Patrick’s favourite club employee. He’s also dating Frank, which destroys every nice thing Patrick has ever thought about him, because Frank? Yeah, he’s a pain in the ass who climbs people like they’re trees. Patrick is not a tree. He has never been a tree, nor does he carry an innate and intense desire to become a tree.

Mikey is usually the manager when Patrick does his weird popular DJ thing. Mikey is dating Ray, a guy who is quite possibly even nicer than Bob. His afro constantly competes with Joe’s for most popular curls and his thighs could squeeze a man in two. Not that Patrick notices these things, no. Patrick doesn’t do that. Ever. Honestly.  
The first indication that Patrick’s night is going to go to shit, is when Patrick arrives at nine thirty to scope out the crowd and get a feeling for the atmosphere so that he doesn’t play Etta Jones meets The Prodigy and cause the crowd of writhing bodies to kill him. 

Travis is alone at the door. Travis should never be alone at the door. The man is high more often than not and could provide no protection for Patrick’s precious soul and fragile body.

Joe isn’t manning the bar with Frank, Ray is. Ray does the clubs’ books and can, by the looks of it, mix drinks like he walked out of the womb with tequila bottles twirling between his fingers. Patrick adjusts his fedora and takes a seat as far away from Frank’s half of the bar as humanly possible. Ray sneaks him a bottle of water while mixing a red drink for the girl with the big hair and tight short dress, right next to him. The crowd isn’t that rowdy tonight, but it is still ridiculously early.

The bar is at the back of the club and has a spectacular view of the dimly lit booths that line the walls and surround the large dance floor. The DJ-booth looks out on the dance floor, directly at the bar, but Patrick hasn’t been in there since he and Gerard relayed the cables to the office, behind the bar.

“Hey man.” Ray calls, giving the skimpy girl her drink and watching her saunter off.

“Hey Ray. Where’s Joe and Bob?” Patrick asks, opening his bottle of whatever brand water the teeny-boppers insist on drinking.

“Friend of theirs is playing a show at Redemption. Mikey said something about coming here after they’re done.” Ray replies, getting a beer for the guy glaring daggers at Patrick for distracting the giver of alcohol from giving him some alcohol.

“Mikey’s not here either?” Patrick asks. A few more people pile through the door. Good feeling crowd, Patrick muses. Before Ray can answer, Frank spots Patrick. Fuck.

“Patrick!” He yells, hoisting a bottle of what appears to be vodka over his head and grins.

“Oh God.” Patrick mumbles and covers his face with his palm. Ray laughs and dishes out more sweet-tasting bad decisions in the making. 

“How are you Patrick baby? Haven’t seen you all month man!” Frank hollers, loud enough for the entire club to hear. Since Patrick started playing the anonymous shows, Frank has been all but yelling it at people that ‘hey look, that guy who you come to hear whose music makes you spend a lot of money on alcohol, he’s right there!’

Frank Iero gives Patrick the fucking hives, but against his will, he’s quite fond of the little guy. A fact, no one must ever know. Punishable by death even. Frank’s ego and smug face is enough to make Patrick want to punch his face in. Patrick did punch Frank once, three years ago when all this stupidity started. Frank was climbing him like a tree and kept saying “Pat-Pat-Pat” until Patrick threw him off of his back, punched his stupid grinning face and stormed off. They never spoke of it again and Frank doesn’t call him Pat anymore.

“I’m fine Frank. Please stop talking to me.” Patrick replies.

“Ray, Patrick is being a mean girl again. Tell him to stop.” Frank whines back.

“Frank, Patrick has a fedora, which means he might have a gun or a garrotte on his person. Stop baiting him. Scrappy or not, he’ll totally kick your ass.” Ray winks at Patrick as he says it. He’s not really violent. He’s like Barney, except less hugging and less purple and well, less dinosaur. Wait, bad metaphor.

“You ready for Arma Patrick?” Frank ignores Ray and yells past him at Patrick.

“Who?” Patrick directs his question at Ray, simply because he’s the type of asshole who knows that he doesn’t want to talk to Frank, much less yell at him to figure out what weirdness he may be up to.

“The band the guys are going to see. They’re coming back here, remember?” Ray says. “You gonna stay and hang out a bit?” Ray hedges. Patrick has not, in the three years he has been unfortunate enough to know these people, stayed to hang out.

“Of course he’s staying!” Gerard says suddenly from beside Patrick. How and when exactly Gerard decided to show up in the last ten minutes, Patrick has no idea. He managed to get the flinch and scream-like-Frank-seeing-a-spider under control. The man is slinky enough that his random creeping up on people doesn’t even bother Patrick anymore. Patrick rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything. There’s no way he’s staying once he’s done educating the masses in decent music. Someone’s dog pissed on his laundry basket and on his not-so-clean-anymore laundry.

“I’m gonna go get set up.” Patrick says, nodding at Ray, and ignoring Gerard’s pout and whatever innuendo Frank calls after him.

:::

Patrick has a routine. At eleven on the dot, his music starts to fade in, no matter where the current song is or how much it pisses the regular DJ off. Gerard made it clear that Patrick basically shits rainbows, so he gets what he wants. Patrick feels a little spoiled, but he likes doing things his way, probably why he’s such a good grunt at the recording studio that is his nine-to-five the rest of the month. Some days Patrick thinks that Gerard just sniffs people out who can keep his businesses legitimate and his ass out of prison.

A few months into the tentative gig, Travis suggested Patrick create a song that will identify him to the populace. What he meant was “I have a song you should record and play in the club to make me rich”. It works too. They recorded ‘Clothes Off’ in the dingy basement of Patrick’s building with a bunch of guys Patrick is pretty sure were stoned out of their minds.

He didn’t want to sing the chorus, or even sing at all. Patrick was in the shower singing Marvin Gaye, when Travis appeared outside the shower curtain and scared seven shades of shit out of Patrick. He might have peed, he’s not sure, but Travis grinned toothily and Patrick knew it was a lost cause to argue that no, he does not want to sing about getting naked to have fun, Travis, no he does not want to sing at all. Telling Travis this, resulted in Patrick’s naked ass being carried fireman style to the basement. Gerard still has a picture of his incredibly white posterior screaming bloody murder, while his face impersonated a tomato.

Now though, when ‘Clothes Off’ plays, Patrick hears the screams through the speakers in the office and he thinks that this will be a good night. ‘Clothes Off’ bleeds into Prince with a distinct dance twinge, bleeds into Michael Jackson, to Bowie to whoever is on the pop chart that might have a good song that is Patrick-friendly.

Patrick likes it, loves it even. Once or twice he bobs his head to the rhythm of one of his creations and he feels giddy when people writhe to his music. And writhe they do. By one am, the place is packed and Patrick can only make out a flurry of movement at the bar, as Ray and Frank pour shots, mix cocktails and pass beers.

Patrick can see Gerard move behind the bar, gliding between Ray and Frank, snatching beer bottles and what appears to be tequila and shot glasses. He even carries them in a baggie made by his shirt. 

Patrick can’t help but grin at how adorable Gerard Way can possibly be. He spots Mikey, Bob, Joe and four other guys he doesn’t recognise, or could hope to recognise, what with the dimply lit booth and all, but Patrick knows that booth is Gerard’s and is reserved for him and Mikey alone.

Patrick changes the next song to ‘Let’s Get It On’ and grins. Someone, possibly Bob, throws a thumb up in the general direction of the camera, knowing that Patrick will see it. 

Two am rolls around far too quickly, but Patrick doesn’t mind. Tonight was good, very good, even if half of his friends weren’t working. Patrick hears the main booth whir to life with some god-awful Lady GaGa song and Patrick sighs, putting his Mac away and rolling the multitude of wires he needs up, placing them back on the hooks they dangle from until he can roll them back down next month.

The office door opens and there’s a deafening noise of party-goers and loud screeching music, before it cuts off to an excited Gerard.

“Patrick!” He has his back to Gerard, but Patrick swears that Gerard is bouncing a little in place.

“Hey Gee.” Patrick replies, hanging the last of his cables up and turning around. Yes, Gerard is bouncing a little in place.

“Bowie and Gaye? You totally made my night.” Patrick rolls his eyes, but grins anyway. Gerard always says the same thing. It never gets old though. “Come on, they’re all waiting on you.”

“Gee, I’m really beat. I’m just gonna head home, okay?”

“Nope, no, hell no. You haven’t been out with us in forever, so shut up and come on.”

“You know, it doesn’t count as going out if we’re in your club.” Patrick muses, zipping his bag closed.

“Yes and it doesn’t count as hanging out with your friends if we see you once a month for half an hour.” Gerard fires back.

“You come over all the time!” Patrick cries.

“Yes, but that’s in daylight. Going out and hanging out with us requires alcohol and darkness.” Gerard says gleefully. “I promise to seat you as far away from Brendon when the boys show up.” Gerard hedges.

“Oh God.” Patrick rubs at his temples and sighs. It is the sigh of a long-suffering man. One that has a group of fanboys and they will not leave him alone. He’s pretty sure Brendon has his name tattooed somewhere on his person. He supposes that he could find out, but he already said hi to the kid once and he can’t get rid of him, sleeping with him would mean Patrick is going to wake up married to the kid. Which, no thank you. Brendon is nice, they all are, but Patrick is terrified of excitable little puppies that follow him around.

“Come on Patrick. Please?” Gerard asks and Patrick can hear the pout.

“God, fine.” He sighs. “But I’m not staying long.” Gerard grins, snatches Patrick’s wrist and drags him out of the office. It is possible that Patrick’s high from minutes before may not last beyond the next twenty minutes.

Gerard and Patrick snake their way between sweaty bodies on their way to the corner booth. Patrick doesn’t get groped this time, but he’s pretty sure it’s because he’s walking with Gerard. Gerard gets twitchy when people touch his flavour of the week and Patrick has steered very firmly clear of being that guy.

Gerard shoves him into the booth next to Bob, for which he’s thankful, and slides a beer and a shot of tequila in front of him. Patrick is sure he’s making a face. Tequila tastes like someone took a dump on his tongue and avoids the pointed look Gerard shoots him. For a recovering alcoholic who is surrounded by his own personal demon every single day, he’s exceptionally relaxed about people drinking around him.

“Hey Patrick.” Bob says, turning his head and smiles. Patrick ignores Gerard’s loud announcement of “Everybody, this is Patrick”.

“Hey, how was the show?” Patrick asks, moving the tequila away gently and clasping his hand around the bottle of beer he knows he doesn’t want to drink.

“It was good. Kids were screaming my head off though.” Patrick laughs and shakes his head.

“You don’t like screaming scene kids, yet you go to a bar that is basically the stomping ground of said scene kids?” 

“Just because it sounds like a bad idea, doesn’t mean it is.” Says someone next to him. Patrick never even noticed him sitting down. From what Patrick can make out in the dim light, the guy has tan skin and tattoos down both his arms. His hair is dark and he has red bangs falling across his right eye. He doesn’t look that much taller than Patrick, but a fly on a match is taller than Patrick on an average day anyway. 

He can’t make out the colour of his eyes, but the stretch of a too-tight-too-short t-shirt distracts him from paying a whole lot of attention.

“A turd is still a turd, no matter how much frosting you spread over it.” Patrick replies, left eyebrow cocked. The guy laughs a loud braying sound that makes Patrick’s lips twitch.

“Pete.” The guy says, sticking his hand out in front of him.

“Patrick.” Patrick replies. He eyes the guy – Pete, his brain supplies – dubiously before shaking his hand.

“So you’re this anonymous rock star Gee’s been raving about, eh?” Pete says. The hand Patrick shook curls around Patricks rejected tequila.

“You’ve got me confused with someone else.” Patrick replies.

“No, see, I don’t think I do. The hat gives you away. It says motown and Bowie and that cheeky Pink song you played earlier. Face it Tricky, you’ve been busted.” Pete grins, big teeth gleaming in the dim light.

“You’re insane.” Patrick says stiffly. “And don’t call me that.” Pete laughs again and pours the tequila down his throat, sans lemon and salt. It makes Patrick want to gag.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Pete hedges. Patrick narrows his eyes, before turning back to Bob. “I knew it!” Pete crows, still grinning. Patrick stiffens and turns back to glare at Pete.

“Congratulations.” He says drily. A skinny guy in even more skinny jeans and obscure band t-shirt plops down next to Pete. He has blue hair and his hand flops high onto Pete’s thigh. It doesn’t look like Pete even notices. Some slow trance beat starts playing and Patrick can see people on the dance floor rubbing away at one another. Pete’s scene kid whispers something in his ear and Patrick sees the kid’s hand squeeze his thigh. Patrick spots Spencer and Jon ambling over. Patrick feels his eyes widen. Fuck.

“I’m leaving.” He announces loudly to the table at large. Pete looks like he’s pouting.

“No, come on Patrick, stay.” Gerard whines. “You haven’t even been here twenty minutes!”

“Brendon’s here.” Patrick hisses. Pete looks confused in his peripheral, before Patrick turns and starts pushing at Pete’s shoulder to get him to move.

“Who’s Brendon?” Pete asks, still sporting the confused puppy look.

“Patrick’s fanboy.” Bob volunteers and gets a dirty look from Patrick for his troubles.

“Oh God. Fuck.” Patrick ducks behind Pete, pushing the grumbling scene kid out of the way. “Hide me!” Pete tries to turn around, but Patrick clamps his hands on his biceps and uses Pete as a human shield. “Don’t move asshole.” Patrick hisses. He’s peering through the slip between Pete’s arm and torso.

“Just, help me. Please.” Patrick begs. He does not have the energy for Brendon Urie tonight or any other night. The cackles from the booth are getting progressively louder and Patrick knows from experience that noise attracts Brendon. It’s his natural habitat and Patrick needs to haul ass, like yesterday.

“Okay, okay. Joh, uh, Jake, grab my hoodie?” Pete addresses someone, but Patrick doesn’t want to look who it is, but by the amount of grumbles, Patrick guesses it’s the scene kid.

Gerard yells suddenly, “Hey Ryan!” and Patrick immediately tugs Pete along to the exit, not even waiting to see if he managed to get his hoodie. Together, they shuffle like crabs out of the club and stumble out the door. Patrick feels like laughing hysterically.

“Fuck that was close.” He says, eyes wide and mouth twitching. “Thanks.” Patrick mumbles to Pete, waves at Travis who is grinning like an asshole and ambles to his car. 

“Hey, you’re gonna use me as a human shield and then just leave?” Pete asks.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that and thanks, again. Really.”

“Wanna get pancakes?” Pete says before Patrick can even turn around. “It’ll totally make up for the massive cock block you just pulled on me.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.” Patrick says again. He doesn’t feel particularly bad about it, but still. 

“So, pancakes?” Pete hedges.

:::


End file.
